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Wednesday, August 10, 2016

IoT and the Campus of Things | EDUCAUSE Review

Photo: Jason O. Hallstrom

The Internet of Things (or more commonly, IoT) is a vision of a world where everyday objects can sense, compute, and communicate with one another and other Internet-connected things, notes Jason O. Hallstrom, PhD, serves as director of the Institute for Sensing and Embedded
Network Systems Engineering at Florida Atlantic University (I-SENSE@FAU)
and as a professor in the College of Engineering and Computer Science.

This ecosystem of chattering objects will be incredibly diverse in
its makeup, ranging from vehicles and roadways, to surgical tools and
hospital beds, to forks and toothbrushes. The collective measurements
and calculations provided by this new Internet tier will provide
unprecedented, macroscopic visibility into a world filled with complex
patterns and behaviors that heretofore were too large to see. These
latent patterns and behaviors will be made manifest, and the everyday
things that populate our homes, our businesses, and our schools will
seamlessly coordinate to optimize our everyday experiences. Sensing,
computing, and communication technology will be integrated everywhere,
and we won't even know it's there.

This futuristic vision of an everything, everywhere, connected world,
where technology silently recedes into the background, is hardly new.
The vision stems from seeds planted nearly three decades ago by computer
visionary Mark Weiser. Weiser articulated the computing paradigm known
as ubiquitous computing:
"It is invisible, everywhere computing that does not live on a personal
device of any sort, but is in the woodwork everywhere." In the late
1980s, when ubiquitous computing first emerged, the vision outstripped
the technological foundation necessary to achieve it. But time is a
wheel, and good ideas have a way of revolving until the foundations
needed to realize them catch up. Sometimes, it takes multiple
revolutions.

A decade after the birth of ubiquitous computing, in the same year that
its progenitor passed away prematurely, the idea made another
revolution, marked by another important extension to the computing
lexicon. Kevin Ashton coined "Internet of Things" in 1999. A brand
manager with Procter and Gamble, Ashton was intrigued by the idea of
lipstick cases that could communicate their type and location to support
inventory management across facilities. The planned implementation was
simple, based on passive RFID tags that could transmit a small amount of
static, preprogrammed information when activated by a network-connected
reader – embedded, for example, in a display case. "I am Natural Blush
621!" "I am Crushed Shells 541!" "I am Wine to Five 538!" The approach
became a blueprint for global retailers like Walmart, which rely on the
simple, monotonous chatter of shirts, razors, and other goods to manage
their global supply chain. This is a far cry from Weiser's vision of
seamlessly integrated computational intelligence, but it provides a
compelling business case for the power of communicating things.

The IoT fuse was lit at the beginning of a catalytic era for computing.
The past 15 years have seen synergistic advancements across a number of
domains on the critical path to achieving the ubiquitous computing
vision. Among the most important, led through investments by DARPA and
the NSF, was the development of robust, miniaturized, wireless sensing
technology. Wireless sensors that vary from the size of a postage stamp
to the size of a matchbox can be deployed to monitor a host of
phenomena, ranging from volcanic activity to human physiology. At the
same time, machine-to-machine cellular connectivity has expanded
dramatically, with concurrent growth in global Internet connectivity.
Coupled with the emergence of cloud computing and big data analytics,
the technology ecosystem necessary to enable an Internet of Things
was complete. A newfound industrial emphasis on the transformative
power of data and the myriad process improvements it can inform served
as the final catalyst. The IoT as a reality — not a phrase — was born.

Today, the IoT sits at the peak of Gartner's Hype Cycle. It's probably
not surprising that industry is abuzz with the promise of streaming
sensor data. The oft quoted "50 billion connected devices by 2020!" has
become a rallying cry for technology analysts, chip vendors, network
providers, and other proponents of a deeply connected, communicating
world. What is surprising is that academia has been relatively
slow to join the parade, particularly when the potential impacts are so
exciting. Like most organizations that manage significant facilities,
universities stand to benefit by adopting the IoT as part of their
management strategy. The IoT also affords new opportunities to improve
the customer experience. For universities, this means the ability to
provide new student services and improve on those already offered.
Perhaps most surprisingly, the IoT represents an opportunity to better
engage a diverse student base in computer science and engineering, and
to amplify these programs through meaningful interdisciplinary
collaboration.

Universities must manage the significant capital assets required to
support their research, teaching, and service missions. For large,
research-intensive institutions, this management task can consume a
nontrivial portion of the operating budget. Campus-wide IoT adoption can
provide important benefits in this context, reducing operating costs
through improved asset monitoring, and optimization of hands-on
personnel time.Read more... Source: EDUCAUSE Review

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About Me

Hello, my name is Helge Scherlund and I am the Education Editor and Online Educator of this personal weblog and the founder of eLearning • Computer-Mediated Communication Center.
I have an education in the teaching adults and adult learning from Roskilde University, with Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) and Human Resource Development (HRD) as specially studied subjects. I am the author of several articles and publications about the use of decision support tools, e-learning and computer-mediated communication. I am a member of The Danish Mathematical Society (DMF), The Danish Society for Theoretical Statistics (DSTS) and an individual member of the European Mathematical Society (EMS). Note: Comments published here are purely my own and do not reflect those of my current or future employers or other organizations.